CHAPTER 103: CALMING DRAGON PULSE

Mozrael stirred again, a low hum slipping from her throat. Her brows furrowed, fingers curling tighter in the blanket.

Lynnor froze mid-swing. Her fist hovered above Aramith’s skull like a divine judgment awaiting approval.

"...She’s waking up," Aramith wheezed, hopeful.

"Which means you live... for now," Lynnor muttered, easing off him.

Aramith exhaled in relief—Mistake number two.

Because Lynnor immediately dropped her weight onto him instead, squashing the breath right back out. "Don’t think I’m finished with you. We’ll resume your re-education later."

He groaned, face still pressed into the dirt. "Re-education?! I thought it was a talk!"

But before she could deliver a parting head-thump, Mozrael’s body tensed. Her back arched sharply under the blanket, breath catching in a ragged gasp.

Lynnor’s teasing expression slipped away like a mask falling. "Moz..." she called, already moving to her side.

Aramith scrambled up, dirt still stuck to his cheek, but when he saw her fingers trembling and her jaw clenched tight, the ache in his head suddenly didn’t matter.

Mozrael’s eyes snapped open for half a heartbeat—gold flashing faintly in her irises—before squeezing shut again. She made a sound that wasn’t quite human, half-growl, half-choke.

"Stay with me," Lynnor said sharply, holding her down as her muscles spasmed.

"What’s happening to her?" Aramith asked, panic rising. His heart thumped loudly in his ears.

"Side effects," Lynnor’s tone was clipped. "You don’t jump gates without paying the toll."

Another shudder tore through Mozrael, and the marks along her skin pulsed faintly, almost like they were breathing.

A tremble zapped through Aramith’s body.

For a moment, Aramith swore he saw the faint silhouette of something vast and reptilian curl around her form, then it was gone.

Mozrael’s breathing hitched in uneven bursts, her hands curling into claws against the ground. The faint pulse along her skin became erratic, flashing dim and bright like a heartbeat in chaos.

"Hold her steady," Lynnor ordered, already bracing her palms on Mozrael’s shoulders.

"I am holding her—" Aramith’s voice broke as Mozrael let out a strained cry, the sound scraping his ears raw.

Then, slowly, the tension in her frame began to ease. The glow along her skin softened, her breaths lengthened, and the trembling subsided like a storm pulling back into the horizon. Just that the sun of hope didn’t appear.

Lynnor exhaled and carefully lowered her back down onto the blanket. "There we go. Just needed to ride that out."

Aramith knelt beside them, searching her face for any sign of pain. "Is she—"

"She’s fine," Lynnor cut in, adjusting the blanket around Mozrael. "It’s not that the energy is too much for her. She just doesn’t know how to control it yet. It’s like stuffing a river into a teacup and wondering why it keeps spilling out into the basin beside you."

Aramith frowned. "And can you help her?"

"I can." Lynnor stood, dusting her hands off. "But you’re gonna need to scoot, boy."

"Why?"

"Because I’m going to have to strip her naked to do it properly." She said it as casually as one might announce they were going to make tea. "Even if you’re siblings, it’s still weird for you to sit there staring at her bits while I’m working. I’m not running a family-friendly peep show."

Aramith’s chest tightened unexpectedly, the idea of leaving her side feeling wrong. He didn’t care about what Lynnor said. "What if—"

"She’ll be fine," Lynnor reassured, giving his arm a light slap. "If I wanted to hurt her, I wouldn’t wait until now. Now go cultivate or something."

Reluctantly, he nodded, moving away and settling a short distance off. He sat cross-legged, trying to focus on his own cultivation, but every sound from behind him made his eyes flicker open.

Lynnor knelt beside Mozrael and took a slow breath, pressing both palms lightly over her chest. The air around them shifted. It became denser, charged like the moment before a thunderclap.

"Youm doesn’t like being told what to do," she murmured. "You have to trick it into thinking it’s moving on its own."

Under her touch, the faint blue glow of the dragon marks flared to life. They traced along Mozrael’s arms and neck like rivers of light, pulsing in uneven waves. Lynnor’s brows furrowed.

"Too wild," she muttered, adjusting her stance. "If I push too hard, it’ll lash back and tear her apart from the inside."

She guided her Youm into Mozrael’s body in thin, steady threads, weaving them between the surging streams of energy. Slowly, the chaos began to follow her rhythm. It was still fierce, but no longer slamming against invisible walls.

Then something unexpected happened. The pure blue of the marks began to shift, flecks of gold blooming within the streams like sunlight breaking into deep water. They swirled together—blue and gold, changing patterns in a way that was almost hypnotic.

Aramith, watching from a distance despite himself, felt his breath catch. But he averted his gaze almost immediately.

The light didn’t just shine. It seemed alive, curling and flowing in response to Lynnor’s every subtle movement.

"Interesting," Lynnor murmured, eyes fixed on the shifting glow. "Not just a dragon’s imprint anymore... something else is waking up in her."

For nearly two hours, Lynnor worked without pause—sometimes coaxing, sometimes forcing the flow into balance. Beads of sweat slid down her jaw, but her hands never faltered.

At last, the marks dimmed to a soft glow, the gold still faintly threaded through the blue, and Mozrael’s breathing deepened into the steady rhythm of true rest.

Lynnor exhaled slowly, drawing her Youm back into herself. She pulled the blanket over Mozrael again, tucking it around her with surprising care.

Aramith’s legs had gone numb by the time he realized he hadn’t even been channeling properly—just sitting there, thoughts circling like vultures.

What if she goes through that again when I’m not there? What if I can’t...

He didn’t notice Lynnor approaching until her shadow fell over him.

He was on his feet instantly. "How is she?"

"She’ll be okay," Lynnor said, rolling her shoulders. "When she wakes up, she’ll be stable. Not perfect, but no more wild surges like earlier."

The knot in his chest loosened. "Good..." His voice wavered just enough to betray him. He was trembling slightly, though whether from relief or the leftover image of Mozrael writhing in pain, he couldn’t tell.

"Thanks," he said quietly.

Lynnor gave him a sideways look, then smacked the back of his head. It was not hard, but enough to make him wince. "What’s with you getting all emotional? Stop that."

He managed a small smile. "I know you’re just being playful, so I don’t feel bad about things."

"Shut up," she said, and knocked him again.

This time, he dodged. "Fine, fine! No more thanking you, ever."

"Good. Saves me from having to knock sense into you again."

"You just want an excuse to hit me."

"Exactly."

Aramith’s shoulders eased for the first time since last night. The knot in his chest loosened, replaced by a long breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.

"She’ll be fine when she wakes up," Lynnor said again, stretching as if the whole thing had been nothing more than a minor chore.

For a moment, he almost laughed at the absurd contrast between her casual tone and what she’d just done. But before he could say anything, Lynnor jerked her chin toward the campfire.

"Come on. Let’s sit down before you start pacing holes into the ground. You worry like an old lay, you know that?"

He followed, and as he sat, her fist suddenly thumped lightly against the back of his head.

"Ow—what was that for?"

"You were supposed to be cultivating, remember?" she said flatly. "Not sneaking peeks every thirty seconds."

"I wasn’t—"

"It’s fine." She smirked, stepping over a log to sit opposite him. "It’s good that you care for her."

Her tone was strangely gentle—well, for Lynnor at least—and he had no idea how to respond to that. So he just let it go and shifted closer to Mozrael’s side.

She was still lying where Lynnor had left her, the faint traces of those shifting marks hidden beneath the blanket. But even in sleep, there was a restlessness in her face, a faint furrow between her brows.

Aramith hesitated, his hand hovering in the air. Then, slowly, he brushed a strand of hair away from her cheek, the motion clumsy but careful.

As his fingers moved, the edge of the blanket shifted, and a faint light pulsed from beneath—blue, threaded with the smallest veins of gold. The glow traced along her skin in slow, rhythmic waves, almost like it was breathing with her.

For a moment, he forgot to breathe himself, caught between awe and the uneasy reminder of what had put it there.

His hand lingered over the marks, tempted to touch them, to check if they were burning her, but he pulled back. If she was in pain, she didn’t show it, yet that didn’t ease the knot in his chest. He brushed another strand from her face.

Up close, she looked far too young to have endured what she had. Her breathing was uneven, her fingers twitching faintly as though she was still fighting something in her dreams.

"You’ll be fine," he murmured, the words more for himself than for her. He needed to believe them. Because if he didn’t, the fear that had dug into him last night would crawl back and bury itself in his chest again.

His thumb lingered against the side of her face for a moment before he pulled back. The fire’s glow danced across her skin, softening the faint tension in her features, and for the first time in hours, he let himself believe that maybe Lynnor was right.

The fire crackled quietly beside them, the sound filling the silence. And with it, the weight in his chest began to ease.